


thin grows the veil

by CloudCover (RainyForecast)



Category: Men's Hockey RPF
Genre: Autumn, Fate, M/M, Time Travel, Writer!Sid
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-12-03
Updated: 2018-12-03
Packaged: 2019-09-06 04:43:23
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,562
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16825372
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/RainyForecast/pseuds/CloudCover
Summary: It’s late autumn the first time he sees him.The trees are nearly bare, their bounty of leaves lying about their roots in quiet drifts. He hears something, first. A whistled song, skilled and fluid. The hair on the back of Sid’s neck prickles.





	thin grows the veil

[the song Geno whistles](https://t.umblr.com/redirect?z=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.youtube.com%2Fwatch%3Fv%3DsP-DbNOaEy0&t=ZDlmNmIwYjA3ZmFlNTljYzI1ZDNkOTk2NTc3OWZhMWZkMmNhZjJhMyxXRUVpNjk5Rw%3D%3D&b=t%3AEq-DaU3xqeeaPB184nfbeA&p=https%3A%2F%2Fknifeshoeoreofight.tumblr.com%2Fpost%2F180731573669%2Fa-little-too-late-for-the-photo-challenge-but-i&m=1)

Sid had been worried about the train tracks when he’d first gone to see the house with a realtor. The property behind the house sloped abruptly down, and he could just see the rails between the summer-green trees.

“Oh, don’t even worry,” she says, wafting her acrylic manicure like she can physically brush away all of his objections. “It hasn’t been in use since the late eighties, I think. A really old stretch of track that just wasn’t needed. No trains, no noise. Makes for a nice walking trail, you’ll love it. You certainly look like an active person!” She gives him the most obvious up-down he’s ever received, and actually licks her frosted lips. Sid’s skin crawls, but the house is beautiful. So he makes an offer.

The house is old, built sometime in the 1800s. It’s creaky and the heating is temperamental, but Sid loves it. It has tall windows and a squeaky parquet floor that glows honey-gold when the sun falls on it.

He’s almost annoyed that the lascivious realtor was right, the abandoned train tracks do make for a great walking trail. Deke loves it. He likes to lollop ahead of Sid, barking at the squirrels, then run back, tongue hanging out of his wide pit bull smile, all proud of himself for protecting Sid.

“Didja scare ‘em off, bud,” Sid asks him fondly. His dog is actually a marshmallow in a bulldozer body, and wouldn’t hurt a fly.

He never sees another soul on the tracks. It’s a strange feeling, walking along the rusted iron, such a tangible sign of human industry, and yet never see or hear anyone. It doesn’t feel haunted, exactly, but there’s…something…to the atmosphere all the same.

***

It’s late autumn the first time he sees him.

The trees are nearly bare, their bounty of leaves lying about their roots in quiet drifts. Sid takes Deke on an early morning walk while there is still fog in the hollows.

He hears something, first. A whistled song, skilled and fluid, a mournful waterfall of notes. Deke stops abruptly up ahead, staring into the mist. The hair on the back of Sid’s neck prickles. 

Like something from a dream, a man’s form almost seems to solidify from the mist itself. He has to be the whistler.

“Deke,” Sid calls out, trying to get his dog to come to him. Deke, for once, doesn’t even turn his head. He stays where he is, staring at the man, body tense. This frightens Sid more than anything else. “Deke,” he calls again. “Here, boy.”

The man is tall. He’s dressed strangely: dirty overalls, a shapeless coat, and a flat-brimmed cap that looks like something only hipsters and Broadway newsboys wear. He’s carrying across his shoulders, of all the fucking things, a sledgehammer.

The song dies as he catches sight of Deke first, then Sid. He stops, abruptly.

Sid isn’t sure what the fuck his deal is, but he’s not about to let his fighting-ring rescued pitbull get into any trouble, so he calls to Deke again, and moves forward at a jog, intending to grab him by the collar if necessary.

The man is looking down at Deke, and he speaks softly to him. Sid’s too far away to hear. Deke’s tail slowly starts to wag. By the time Sid is close enough to grab him, the man is kneeling, scratching at Deke’s ears and murmuring to him in something that isn’t English.

“Hey there,” Sid says uncertainly, and stops a few feet away. The guy is still holding the sledgehammer.

He looks up at Sid. His face is smudged with dirt, and he has soft, dark eyes. “Hello,” he says, the word heavy with an accent of some kind. He blinks and looks around him, brow furrowed. He lays a hand on the rust-covered rail, and something like fear passes over his face.

“Where this?” he asks sharply, standing. Fuck, he’s tall. “Where?” He gestures around them.

“Um, we’re a mile or two from Elmwood?” Sid says, referencing the closest town. “Are you lost?”

The man looks around himself, his expressive face looking lost indeed. “Who you?” he asks, instead of answering Sid’s question.

“I’m Sid. I can walk you up to the road, if you want. Did you forget where you parked your car?”

The man laughs. “Don’t have car,” he says, like Sid made some kind of hilarious joke. “Do I look like rich man?”

Oh. “I’m sorry,” Sid says. He’s homeless, of course. It explains the state of his clothes. And maybe the confusion is due to drugs, or alcohol. Not that all homeless people have substance abuse problems but—

The man interrupts his thoughts. “Do you have telephone?”

“Oh, sure,” Sid says, and pats down his pockets until he finds his cell. He holds it out to the man, who glances at it briefly and then keeps looking expectant.

“At your house,” the man explains, patient, like he’s talking to a child. “Your have telephone? Or neighbor? Or maybe one at store?”

The fuck. “Sorry, no, just a cell,” Sid says, and swipes his phone open. He once again holds it out to the man, but the man is staring at it like it’s going to bite him.

“What you do?” he says, an edge of panic in his voice. “Why’s it get color?”

Sid stares at him. He is not equipped to deal with someone having a mental health crisis. He makes his voice gentle.

“What’s your name? Where do you think you are?”

The man removes his hat and runs a big hand through his tousled brown hair. “Evgeni Malkin. Walk away from camp, want to start next section of track. Trying to find where we stop yesterday.”

“Stopped what?” Sid asks.

The man looks at him like he’s stupid. “Stop building tracks, of course.”

Sid’s insides go cold. He looks down at the track at their feet, rusted and derelict. The man’s definitely experiencing a break from reality.

“Right, okay,” Sid says. It’s best to kind of go along, isn’t it? Keep him calm until Sid can call emergency services or something.

The man is staring down at the rails too. “Don’t understand,” he says, voice small. “Why they look like that? Sid?” He raises his eyes to Sid’s, and Sid thinks he’ll never forget that look, confusion bleeding into terror. “What’s happen?”

“It’s going to be okay, I promise,” Sid tries to soothe. “Let’s just sit here for a moment and let your head clear, okay?” He gestures to the slope behind them.

The man nods and moves forward as if to follow Sid’s suggestion.

But between one breath and the next, right in front of Sid’s eyes, the man flickers from view, like a projection switching off.

Sid can’t breathe. He’s got to be dreaming this.

But Deke barks, running to where the man had been standing, sniffing the air, baffled and upset.

In the damp earth, there’s a single hobnailed boot print.

***

Sid goes to Elmwood’s tiny little library, and makes the elderly librarian’s day when he tells her he want to research town history. Her family has apparently lived in the town for three generations.

An inquiry into the building of the local railroads leads him to a photograph dated 1907. It’s of a work crew tasked with building the very railroad spur that runs behind Sid’s house.

He’s not hard to find. He’s taller than most of the other men, standing at one end of the group in the same overalls and cap he’d been wearing when Sid had encountered him. Sid sits back in his chair, hands trembling, heart racing.

He takes the album containing the photo up to the librarian and tries to sound normal as he asks if he can photocopy the page.

“Of course, my dear,” the the woman tells him. “Oh, I remember this. My grandfather was the foreman of that crew.” She points out a man in a straw hat and a vest. “Mostly foreign workers, immigrants who lived in the city but came here to work.”

“Did he have any stories about them?” Sid has to ask.

“Nothing in particular, just that he learned a lot of naughty words from all kinds of languages!” the librarian says with a twinkle in her eye. “Although there was one thing— yes— “ She bustles back to the archives and digs around for a moment. “Ah yes, here it is!”

She emerges with a box of microfiche film. “Come over here, I’ll show you!”

At the reader, she pulls up some text and then sits Sid in front of the reader to see. It’s an article from a November 1907 copy of the Elmwood Gazette.

She taps the screen. “There it is. ‘Man Goes Missing’. It always bothered my grandpa. Of course, people didn’t hold very kind opinions of foreigners, most said he’d just run off. But Grandpa didn’t think so. He said he was one of his best workers.”

Apparently, early on the morning of November 17th, 1907, Evgeni Vladimirovich Malkin had walked out of the railway crew work camp, and was never seen again. Sid’s blood runs cold.

***

He doesn’t think he’ll see him again, the ghost? Apparition? What kind of ghost leaves boot prints, anyway?

But he goes out with Deke early the next morning anyway. It’s misty again, and just like before, when he reaches the hollow where the mist pools thickest, he hears whistling.

“You!” Evgeni says, when he fades back into view.

“Hello,” Sid says, and stares. Impossibly, miraculously, he’s standing in front of a person from 1907. He nearly can’t breathe.

Evgeni lifts an eyebrow at him. “What? Why you look?”

Sid shakes his head and doesn’t answer him. Instead he asks, “Do you know the date today?”

Evgeni frowns. “Foreman say it’s November 2nd. You don’t know?”

November second. The same date it is in 2018. He hasn’t disappeared yet in his own time. Does this mean he’s, not a ghost? He’s actually here, through some kind of…inter-dimensional time rift?

“Look little bit sick,” Evgeni says. “You need sit down?”

Sid laughs, a little high and hysterical. “No, no, I’m fine. It’s just that—“ How does he explain this? “You’re here. Like the other day. Not here one second, then you appeared. And then disappeared again.”

Evgeni draws his brows together and regards him for a long moment before finally speaking. “I’m think…this place look too strange. Trees too big. Track is old. I’m have feeling I’m go somewhere else. Where is this, Sid?”

“The same place, I think,” Sid says. “But not the same time. It’s, um. 2018. One hundred and eleven years after your time.”

Evgeni sits down, heavily, and covers his eyes with one shaking hand.

“How—“

Sid waits for him to finish but he doesn’t say anything more.

“I don’t know,” Sid says gently. And decides not to say anything about Evgeni’s eventual disappearance right now. “I’m as shocked as you. But last time, remember, you weren’t here long. You flickered back out of sight within a few minutes.”

Evgeni nods, swallowing hard. “Fine. Just have to wait. Or walk back.” He turns and looks behind him, at the fog. “Maybe I try.” He stands, still a little unsteady. One step, another. He turns back to look at Sid, opens his mouth like he’s about to speak, and is gone.

***

There’s no question of Sid staying home the next day. He’s out at the spot where Evgeni appears while everything is still pre-dawn murk. It’s raining today, a fine, silvery drizzle.

There’s no fog in the hollows today, but between one breath and the next, a sheeting curtain of rain solidifies into Evgeni.

He blinks, looks around him. Deke barks in excitement, and strains against Sid’s hold on his collar. Evgeni turns, and smiles at them. It’s the first time Sid has seen him smile, and it changes his entire face.

“You here again,” he says, with a playful jut of his chin. Charming, Sid’s mind supplies. It’s a startling realization, and makes Evgeni seem more real than anything else, turning him from a grim, dour apparition into a flesh and blood person.

“You’re in a good mood,” Sid says.

Evgeni laughs, and the sound of it is deep and warm, making something unbidden settle under Sid’s ribcage.

“Not so scare this time,” Evgeni says then. “Know how to get back.”

Oh. Right. Sid looks at him, and feels a wave of guilt, sick and cloying. He has to tell him.

“It’s raining, and my house is right up there.” Sid points up the slope. “Want some coffee?”

“Tea?” Evgeni says hopefully, and Sid nods. He’s bound to have a box somewhere.

***

Sid’s house is from Evgeni’s time, and he’s glad of it. It should help him not to freak out completely at the changes to the world.

He’d forgotten about his car, though, parked in his driveway in all it’s shiny, modern glory.

Evgeni gasps when he sees it. “This is your auto?” he says, and lopes ahead of Sid to run his hands over the hood and to rap his knuckles against the window.

“Like machine from dime novels,” he says, with a wide, delighted grin back at Sid. “For fly to the moon.” Sid does his best to smile back.

***

Sid’s taste is pretty classic. “Hipster,” his sister always teases him. So what, he loves history. It’s how he makes his living, after all.

Evgeni stares around Sid’s house with unbridled curiosity.

“So many book,” he says.

“I’m uh. I’m a writer,” Sid explains. “Historical fiction, mostly, so I do a lot of research.”

Evgeni hums in acknowledgment as he gently touches a model of a WW11 plane with a single finger.

He continues making his way around Sid’s living room, touching the sofa, the shelves, examining all of Sid’s curios, staring in puzzlement at the black screen of the powered-down tv before shrugging and moving on.

He pauses in front of Sid’s shelf of antique books. He slides one off the self, carefully opens it. The one he’s chosen, Sid knows, has a handwritten fountain pen dedication inside the front cover.

“1909,” Evgeni says softy. “Look so old.” He places the book back on its shelf with painstaking care, and stares at the spine, his face wearing that lost, fearful look again.

“Come on,” Sid says, unable to stand it. “How about that tea?”

***

Evgeni loves Sid’s electric kettle and isn’t much impressed by Lipton tea, even though he tries to be polite about it.

Tea in hand, he continues his wandering, reminding Sid of a large cat, sniffing out a new territory.

His eyes widen when he comes to the fridge and it’s plethora of photos and drawings. He points to one of Cath and Tanger. “Sid,” he says, shocked. “Should not keep out! People will see.”

Sid walks up to look. Realization dawns on him when he realizes that since it’s a beach photo, Tanger is shirtless and Cath is wearing a bikini top and short-shorts. “No-no-no!” he hurriedly explains. “It’s not _that_ kind of picture- no! Those are my friends. They’re wearing those clothes because it’s hot, at the beach. They’re going to swim in the water.”

“Sid,” Evgeni says patiently, obviously humoring him. “Is okay to have. Many men have. I know, is lonely. Just should be more careful.”

“Oh my god,” Sid says, not wanting to deal with it anymore. Evgeni shrugs and returns to the photos, cooing at a family photo of Flower and Vero. He suddenly goes very, very quiet, however, and Sid’s heart sinks when he sees what Evgeni is looking at.

This guy Brad Sid knows from back home is getting married next summer, and sent one of those photo collage save-the-dates of him and his fiance, Patrice. Standard engagement photos. Back hugs, besotted smiling. A kiss.

A kiss between two men.

Evgeni carefully tugs at the photo and pulls it off the fridge.

“Don’t,” Sid says, and can’t bring himself to go on.

“Shouldn’t have out,” Evgeni says, voice strained. “They put you in a jail, Sid.”

Sid decides to try and explain, futile as it may be. “Those are my friends. They’re getting married next summer.”

Evgeni’s eyes go big, and his mouth drops open. “Married?”

“Yeah. It’s not allowed everywhere in the world, but here in America two men can marry each other.” He moves aside a child’s drawing and shows Evgeni his friend Julie and Caroline’s baby announcement photo postcard. “Or two women.”

Evgeni just stares, then reaches out to touch the card, tracing Julie and Caroline’s smiling faces, the tiny bundle of their baby girl.

Sid watches Evgeni’s face, and realizes, shocked, that his eyes are red and almost overflowing. Not with outrage. Something else is going on here.

“They can—” Evgeni says, and swipes at his eyes with his shirtsleeves. “Not illegal?”

“No,” Sid says, some instinct telling him to speak gently. “Not here.”

Evgeni stands in front of the fridge for a long, long time. Sid lets him, and pretends he doesn’t notice the tears.

***

Sid goes and gets his photocopies from the library, and sits at the kitchen table. Evgeni drifts around a little more before his orbit takes him back to Sid.

“I found out some things,” Sid says quietly. “After the first time I met you.” He slides the photocopy he made of the work crew photo across the table.

“Oh!” Evgeni smiles and takes the photo. “It’s me!” He studies it for a moment. “I remember. This was day we break ground.”

Sid takes a deep breath. He waits for Evgeni to look up, and then he slides his copy of the newspaper article across to him.

“I found this too,” he says, and waits. Evgeni takes a long time to read the headlines, lips moving soundlessly as he deciphers the Roman letters.

“What,” he breathes, and stares up at Sid, eyes begging to understand. “I’m go away? Never come back?”

“It’s not today. They say it’s on the seventeenth. I spoke to the librarian and she said her grandfather had been the foreman, and that you…never came back.”

Evgeni’s chest is heaving, breath coming rushed and panicky. Sid feels sick, but he knows he had to tell him.

Evgeni stands up, knocking the table and rattling his mug of tea.

“I’m go back now,” he says, and Sid nods.

“Of course.”

***

They walk back to the spot on the tracks where Evgeni appears and disappears. Deke trots along, looking concerned at how upset everyone else is.

There’s still rain falling when they reach their destination.

“I’m not come again,” Evgeni says, and Sid nods, feeling numb.

“I understand,” he says, and wonders distantly if the newspaper article will change, or maybe disappear. He wonders if he’ll even remember it, if it never existed. He wonders if his own memories will change.

“Sid,” Evgeni says. Sid is startled out of his thoughts. Evgeni is starting at him, eyes dark and fathomless.

He reaches out, and gently tips Sid’s chin up.

“Never get chance again,” he whispers, and presses his lips to Sid’s. Sid makes a shocked, hurt sound, and can’t look away as Evgeni steps away.

Evgeni walks backward, staring at Sid as if committing him to memory.

And then he’s gone.

***

Sid goes through the following days in a kind of haze. The article remains on his kitchen table, where Evgeni left it, every word remaining the same. Sid supposes maybe another article will appear in the paper about the lost railroad worker returning safe and sound.

He goes out to the place where Evgeni appeared every morning, but he never reappears.

***

Sid wakes up early on the seventeenth. He stares at his bedroom ceiling, and thinks about going into the woods, waiting on the tracks.

He wonders why the idea of never seeing Evgeni again feels as raw and tender as it does. A fresh bruise he keeps pressing his fingers to, wondering where he got it.

***

It’s raining, the faded reds and golds of the leaves all brighter slicked with water. His makes his way down the track slowly. It’s later than it usually is when Evgeni appears. He’s not expecting to see anything.

Deke startles him from his thoughts by barking, and suddenly rushing ahead, whole body wriggling excitedly.

Sid can’t breath.

Evgeni steps out of the rain, clothes soaked, a knapsack over his shoulder.

Sid stops, feet rooted to the ground. Evgeni breaks into a jog, skidding to a stop in front of him.

“Sid,” he says, his eyes wide and bright. He looks afraid, but there’s something else there in his face as well. Sid’s not sure what it is.

“Evgeni, I thought I’d never— I thought you weren’t coming back.”

Evgeni hitches his knapsack up higher on his shoulder. “Do nothing but think, for days. While I’m work, all night instead of sleep. And I’m think I know why newspaper say I leave. I decide to come back. To stay.” He shifts on his feet, nervous. “Stay…with you?”

“Yeah,” Sid breathes. “Of course, I…” He doesn’t have the words. Evgeni strides forward, and just like before, gently tilts up Sid’s chin.

But this time, the kiss doesn’t taste like goodbye.

**Author's Note:**

> You can find me on Tumblr as [knifeshoeoreofight](http://knifeshoeoreofight.tumblr.com/) . Come say hi!


End file.
